My Awesome Historicon Adventure, Part 2.

As I said on "500 Miles...", there was a lot of stuff for my historical side to be engaged in, as most of the games I got into last weekend were of the World War II variety. No complaints at all, but I figured it would be of more interest here.

As for stuff for my historicals, I picked up in 20mm a pair of painted BT-7s and a BA-10 or 32 (I cannot tell the difference) and a Puma (I needed to get a replacement) as well as another M-18 and a M-10. I also got another Stug-IIIG, but it has a broken barrel, and I might have the means to fix it, if someone out there can let me know whether or not the Stug packed a 75L48 or not? I also got some painted Hungarians (11 of them)...and the piece de resistance...a very nicely done factory. It's going to replace my current one......I honestly wasn't nuts about the Gamercraft one...This one is astethically much nicer and I will have some pics of it up soon!

On Thursday, I got into "Battle of the Atlantic" which was a fictional WW-II battleship bash between the Germans (the Germans had some fictional H class ships to even it up) and Italians on one side, and the Americans, British, and French on the other, the French being represented by Dunkurque. I played Iowa and Missouri, and well, the Germans and Italians had a rough day...and I mean rough. On turn 4, we were basically getting hits at long range on the Germans, and we forced Scharnhorst, Geniesenau, Lutzow, Roma, and Vittoria to retire with heavy damage.

So, the Germans sped ahead with their two H-Class monsters, and then engaged the modern American battleline, made up of 2 Iowas, 2 North Carolinas and 2 Alabamas...considering one of the two ships was named after the old Austrian House Painter himself...guess which of the two caught all the fire? I am happy to say, we sank her, and left her sister pretty shot up by game end, which handed the Allies the victory, at the cost of some very damaged British battleships (mostly older ones) as well as Alaska who had gotten the worst of a gun duel with the Italians.

For those asking, Bismark and Tirpitz were there, and were shot up, but still able to fight. My own ships had taken a bit of a pasting, Iowa was getting ready to head off the table, and Missouri was detaching to fight on when the game ended.

Here are some photos of this madness!

The next morning, I played in a Rapid Fire game called "RattenKrieg", which to be honest, I found to be *meh* though most of the company was personable enough. Simply put, the victory conditions as the game was laid out were impossible for the Soviets (being a Soviet player), and I said so after the game was done. We were to hold a block of six buildings for 10 turns...we had lost half our troops by turn 2. We would pop out, kill a few Germans,and then get massacred...in hard cover. It made no sense to be honest, and smoke was a little TOO powerful in Rapid Fire. I had suggested, that since the ref said we had inflicted more casualties on points than we lost, he should change it to a delaying action aka, come out ahead on points? (We did kill a lot of Germans, especially tanks). I wasn't nuts about the game and I passed on attending another session. But...I did get some photos of the excellent terrain!

I then took a ton of photos around the con, and some of the games were downright gorgeous:

On Saturday, I got into a WWII fighter combat game based on the old AH "Air Force/Dauntless" rules, moderated by smartphone/tablet Java app..and my god it was fun. It was a 4v4 fight of Wildcat v. Zero. Both sides lost one a/c a piece, and I leaned an advanced tactic of "banking" my ability to turn, and it was a tight, fun game...lots of damaged a/c and I leaned, "use the vertical vs. the Zero." I got very good at staying out of other's firing arcs.

Here's some pics to have a look at.

After that, I played some other games as mentioned on "500 Miles.." , and this led to my final game of the con, a Saturday pickup game of Battlegroup: Kursk, run ably by Mike Pierce. I had fun, though there were a few things were some of us went huh, and I consulted Piers Brand today about. suffice to say, I liked the answers I got, and learned something.

The game was a toughie for us Russians, as we had to cross a lot of open ground to take a hill and a village (though the village had some wheatfields for cover). We did have some Katyusha prep fire, and we used it well, thanks to Mike Byrne, who's former life as an artilleryman proved very useful there. Who knew the German commander could roll like a demon! My first wave of tanks got in, but we bled for it, and we took the front face of the hill by game end, the village to our left, however, was a different story, and would probably have fallen to us if given two to three more turns.

Now the question remained, what of the approaching German armored counter attack? They had lost a couple of Mk IVs, but they still had a lot of tanks...we still did too and the fact was, we had the advantage of terrain now, so I think if their assault had gone in...it probably would have chewed up both sides rather badly.

Mike also mentioned that Fall In will correspond with the 75th anniversary of Stalingrad...I really see an opportunity for that factory!!! In any event, I intend to use it soon...probably as early as next month..might roll out my "East Front Cityfight game" again!

And yes, I have some photos here as well:

In short, it was a good end to a great convention. I had a ton of fun, I will be putting some closing remarks and some items of interest to Battletech/Alpha Strike players in Part 3 on my Alpha Strike Blog.